Anderson Silva’s Return Affirms The End Of His Career

By Paul Pastorini @paul_past on February 2, 2015

Watching former middleweight champion Anderson “The Spider” Silva defeat Nick Diaz by unanimous decision at UFC 183 felt a lot like watching Michael Jordan compete in a Washington Wizards jersey during a pointless regular season basketball game.

Despite flashes of brilliance, Silva, widely recognized as the greatest MMA fighter of all time, was hardly the mesmerizing force he used to be. This should by no means be surprising: Silva will turn 40 years old in April, and an argument can be made that his back-to-back losses to Chris Weidman were more physically and psychologically debilitating than the sum total of damage he’s endured in his other professional fights combined.

Not only had Silva been knocked out by Weidman in July 2013, he had also shattered his left leg against Weidman’s checked kick during their rematch, which took place 13 months ago. Given Silva’s specific set of circumstances, his victory over Diaz on Saturday, Jan. 31, at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas was impressive – some have even called it inspiring.

But therein lies the problem. Once we remove those circumstances and gauge Silva’s performance against how the UFC’s current stable of elite middleweights would’ve performed against Diaz, the reality of how shot Silva really is becomes exceedingly clear.

Put simply, Diaz is no middleweight – not even close. He’s fought his entire career at lightweight and welterweight, which is 15 to 30 pounds lighter than the 185-pound middleweight limit he fought at against Silva. And let’s not forget that Diaz hadn’t fought since Georges St-Pierre dominated him back in March 2013.

On top of all that, Diaz isn’t a particularly quick-handed fighter. He never wrestles, his defense is usually nonexistent, and he’s never possessed one-punch knockout power. In other words, Diaz signified the perfect matchup for an ailing Silva, both stylistically and circumstantially.

Against a prime Silva – one who fought and even knocked out light heavyweights like Forrest Griffin with ease – Diaz would’ve likely been rendered unconscious after one missed punch.

Yet Silva couldn’t knock down Diaz over the course of five rounds, much less truly hurt him with any significant blows. More alarming was the ease with which Diaz appeared to hit Silva, whose trademark reflexes have visibly diminished since the end of his seven-year reign as middleweight champion.

One can only imagine the impact Diaz’s punches would’ve had if he was a legitimate middleweight. Then again, we probably won’t have to imagine for too long; the sad truth of UFC 183 is that in all likelihood, Silva’s performance won’t be enough to persuade him to retire.

Fighters, especially elite fighters, are a stubborn breed by nature, and in most cases it takes multiple traumatic beatings to snap them out of the delusional world they often inhabit. Silva is no exception. He commented after the fight that his son’s pleas for his father to retire were more important than continuing to fight, and that the decision to fight again would be impossible without talking to his family.

Moments later, however, he said it felt great to be back, and that he’d missed the feeling of being able to compete at the highest level.

Those are not unique comments from a fighter on the cusp of retirement, and you can bet that as time passes, so to will reality. Silva’s minor injuries from Diaz will heal, and the question of whether he should fight again – whether he can perform the way he used to – will no doubt force Silva inside the Octagon once more.

Hall-of-Fame writer Nigel Collins once wrote that the combination of blatant violence and the fundamental nature of combat “fires the imagination and creates such an intoxicating mix of fact and fancy. Some of it is good and some of it is bad, and we each make up our minds which is which.”

And so we will wait for Silva to decide between fact and fancy, and MMA fans will wonder in the meantime if the reemergence of the Silva of old is even possible.

“We’ll be able to tell by his next performance,” said UFC president Dana White during the post-fight press conference.

Let’s hope that there is no next performance, because the simple fact is that we can already tell.

Paul Pastorini is a Boxing Writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @paul_past, find him on Facebook, or add him to your network on Google.